


Changes Of Plans

by afteriwake



Series: 100 Dates [4]
Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Botched Plans, Change In Plans, Chinese Food, Comforting molly, Embarrassed Martin, F/M, First Kiss, Flowers, Fluff, Happy Ending, Happy Molly, Mentioned Arthur Shappey, Mentioned Douglas Richardson, POV Molly Hooper, Taxis, Upset Martin, caring molly, date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 10:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10187876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: While plans for their fourth date don't goquiteas planned, thanks to the perhaps unintended influence of Martin's co-workers, Molly is fairly satisfied the ending will be just fine after all.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stbartsmolly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stbartsmolly/gifts).



> So this fic is for **stbartsmolly** who had asked to claim one of my Martin/Molly fics ages ago and this was the one I picked! The date off the list is " _9\. Go to Chinatown. Play restaurant roulette. And after you've chosen somewhere to eat, play dim sum roulette too._ " This is one of the fics where the date doesn't _quite_ happen, but they tried.

Molly was happily humming to herself as she finished straightening up her office before her date with Martin. Tonight they were doing date number nine on the list, the Chinatown restaurant roulette. She had said she’d pick the restaurants, and was originally going to take price into consideration, but a very welcome surprise had made her dash her original list and go with one of all the higher rated lists. Some of these places needed reservations so she _hoped_ they could get a table, but even if they had to pick a second or a third restaurant, it would still be a fun date.

She had to admit, she hadn’t really had this much fun looking forward to dates before. And it wasn’t just that they were working off a list of interesting activities. It was...well, it was martin. There was something about him, she’d noticed, once they’d gotten used to each other, that made her look forward to seeing him. They talked on the phone and via email more than they saw each other in person; after all, this was only their fourth actual date. But she couldn’t help but know she was quite enamored with him, distance be damned.

She heard the double doors open and bit back a sigh. “If that’s a body...” she said out loud.

“More like curious date?” she heard Martin say as the office door opened a few moments later. She turned and saw her had a small bouquet of carnations with him, looking a bit sheepish. “Not much, I know, but I wanted to surprise you with flowers and still have a good meal.”

She gave him a wide smile and took the flowers from him. They were each dyed a different color and it made for a rainbow bouquet and was really quite lovely. She leaned in and kissed his cheek softly. “Well, I have a surprise for that. I won a contest I entered here at the hospital. I have a one hundred pound prepaid card to spend wherever I wish, and what I wish is to go somewhere and stuff myself on Chinese. So dinner is on me and we’ll say drinks or dessert is on you, whatever we decided to go for after dinner.”

Martin grinned at that as she took the flowers. “Well, since it’s a bit early, if we’re stuffing ourselves, maybe a film somewhere?”

Molly nodded as she went looking for something to put the flowers in. it had been a long time since she’d had flowers in her office. “That sounds splendid too. The more time I get to spend with you the better.”

“I have to stay overnight, actually. The plane is here.”

Molly looked over at him, her eyes wide. “Really?”

He nodded. “Carolyn got us a client but the client wanted to fly out of a small airport on the outskirts of London instead of coming up to us, so Douglas and Arthur and I flew in this afternoon. They wanted to meet you but I put my foot down as supreme commander.”

“They can’t be any worse than Sherlock,” she said.

“I don’t know...” Martin said.

“Tell you what. You invite them along to drinks before dinner. I’ll cover those. Then we can have an escape if we can get a reservation to the restaurant and if it all goes to hell, they can’t come with us. If it isn’t so bad, maybe they can have dinner on me. And then the movie is just us.” She found a vase from when she’d had flowers before, hidden in the bottom of a drawer, and put the flowers in. “Where are you staying? With them?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Airport lounge.”

“Nonsense,” she said, shaking her head. “I have a guest bedroom in my flat. Please tell me you’ll stay there? You deserve a good night’s rest.”

Martin gave her a smile and a nod. “Alright.”

“Good. Let’s do the roulette part and then I’ll make reservations and you tell your friends to meet us at Viaduct Tavern here near the hospital.” She pulled out a listing of all the good restaurants in Chinatown she had been to or had heard good things about. Some of the ones on the list included London Chinatown Restaurant, Baozi Inn, Opium, Imperial China, New Mayflower, Old Tree Daiwan Bee and Dumplings' Legend. “How do we want to choose?” she asked, looking at Martin.

He thought for a moment. “Spin me around, let me point to one?” he suggested.

She chuckled. “As long as you close your eyes.” He did, and she put her hands on his shoulders and turned him around rather quickly a few times before moving his hand over the sheet of paper. “Alright. Drop it.”

He put his finger down. “Am I on the paper?”

“Yes, you are. On...” She lifted his finger up. “Joy King Lau. Rather pricey place, but excellent dim sum.”

“Molly, you really don’t have to feed Douglas and Arthur too,” he said.

“If we’re all buddy buddy, it will be fine,” she said. “I insist. The film will be just us and if they try and intrude I’ll use some judo moves on them. Alright?”

Martin grinned at her. “Alright.”

**\---**

Molly _really_ did not like Douglas.

Arthur was actually rather sweet. Not all that bright in the book-wise sense, but very sweet and good natured and he made her laugh. Douglas, on the other hand, took the opportunity to tease Martin quite a bit in a way that made Martin uncomfortable, so when it came time for their reservation, Molly made their excuses and got them in a cab to head to Joy King Lau. She held onto his hand tightly as he stared out at the street. “Penny for your thoughts?” she asked.

“We shouldn’t have had drinks,” he said.

“Yeah,” she replied, lacing her fingers through his. “Though I doubt it would have made a difference.”

“He does like to tease,” Martin said, carefully squeezing her hand. 

“Do you _really_ want to go out to eat tonight?” she asked after a moment.

He turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we can go to the restaurant and just tell them we need to head back home unexpectedly and see if they’ll let us order and get it as takeaway. I’ll order an obnoxiously large amount of food and whatever we don’t stuff ourselves with tonight I’ll eat over the next few days. And then we go back to my flat, look at the films I have, watch some and eat Chinese on the sofa.”

“But that isn’t the date on the list,” he said.

“We’ll have stepped foot in the restaurant and eaten their food. And if they don’t do takeaway we’ll find another place that will in the area. As long as there’s dim sum, I’m happy because that will fulfill the date for me.” She gave him a small grin. “I just want to spend time with you anyway. Make sure you have a good date.”

He grinned back and then nodded. “Thank you.”

Her grin grew a little wider, and then she let go of his hand. His grin turned to a frown for a moment before she moved both her hands to frame his face and leaned in, kissing him softly on the lips. He was surprised, she knew that, but after a moment, he kissed her back, keeping the kiss very gentle. She pulled away and then looked at him for a moment, her wide grin matching his, before she took his hand in hers again and rested her head on his shoulder. Even though it hadn’t been the absolute best start to this date, she had the feeling the ending would be _much_ better.


End file.
